Scientists develop tool to trace metabolism of cancer-fighting tomato compounds

The University of Illinois scientists who linked eating tomatoes with a reduced risk of prostate cancer have developed a tool that will help them trace the metabolism of tomato carotenoids in the human body. And they've secured funding from the National Institutes of Health to do it."Scientists believe that carotenoids—the pigments that give the red, yellow, and orange colors to some fruits and vegetables -- provide the cancer-preventive benefits in tomatoes, but we don't know exactly how it...

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Chemists design molecule that responds to stimuli

A cartoon representation of reversible organization from synthetic lipid-like molecules to form cell-like structures (called vesicles) upon change in temperature. The cell like structures cluster together similar to toad eggs or Caviar-like morphologies upon maintaining a particular temperature. The venus flytrap plant captures its prey when it senses the presence of an insect on the tips of its leaves. An amphiphilic molecule designed by chemists at The City College of...

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Snake fangs evolved from groovy teeth

A SET of 200-million-year-old teeth from a beast related to dinosaurs and crocodiles has shed light on how snake fangs evolved. They support the idea that venom canals inside fangs evolved from grooves on the tooth surface.The late Triassic reptile Uatchitodon is known only from its teeth, which resemble tall, serrated crocodile or dinosaur teeth. Several have been found, and the two youngest ones, dating from 220 million years ago, have what look like venom canals. An older set have grooves of...

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Green machine: Bugs and sparks turn salty water fresh

Mixing bacteria with drinking water sounds like a recipe for an upset stomach. But a bug-powered desalination cell that takes salt out of seawater may cut the cost of quenching the world's thirst.With one-third of the planet's population lacking sufficient drinking water, governments are increasingly looking to desalination to produce fresh water from seas and estuaries.However, conventional desalination plants consume large amounts of energy. For instance, they use reverse osmosis, in...

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Physicists say early universe like liquid

European researchers at CERN's Large Hadron Collider say experiments show the very early universe was not only very hot and dense but behaved like a hot liquid.By smashing lead nuclei together at high energies, they've generated incredibly hot and dense sub-atomic fireballs, recreating the conditions that existed in the first few microseconds after the Big Bang, ScienceDaily.com reported.Scientists say temperatures of over 10 trillion degrees are being created in these mini big bangs.At these temperatures,...

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Single drop of blood could reveal age!!

Blood drop - نقطة دم Dutch researchers say they've developed a way to tell a person's approximate age from one drop of blood, a test that could be used in crime investigation. Scientists at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam say as a forensic technique it could be used to revive police investigations that have hit a dead end, AAAS ScienceMag.org reported Monday. The blood-age test relies on a peculiarity of T cells, immune cells in the body that recognize and fight microbial...

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A tattoo monitor health!!!!

A sensor to be injected into the skin just like a tattoo that measures sodium concentrations in the blood has been developed by US scientists. The sensor could be used to monitor diseases or warn against dangerously low sodium levels during exercise. Heather Clark from Northeastern University, Boston, and coworkers made plastic nanobeads that fluoresce to different extents with changes in sodium levels. The beads are coated with a biocompatible polymer and are injected just under the skin...

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Rise of the micro machines

Microjet engines called microbots that can transport cells within a fluid to any desired location have been developed by German scientists.Manipulating nanomachines to transport biological matter in the body has been a challenge until now. Samuel Sanchez from the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden and colleagues have shown that by using a magnet, it is possible to navigate a microbot towards a specific cell within the body, pick it up from point A and transport it to point B. Taking...

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Neutral positronium scatters like a charged particle

Positronium beamline: where are the positrons hiding? Positronium is the atom-like bound state of an electron and its antiparticle the positron – and therefore has no net electrical charge. But physicists in the UK are scratching their heads after finding that positronium interacts with matter as if it were a lone electron, with the mass and positive charge of the positron seemingly invisible. This surprising discovery will spur researchers to find an explanation, and may have consequences from...

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Flexible metamaterial springs to life!!

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